Holiday o' the day: The Devil Came Down to Devonshire
Sunday, 8 February 2015 12:00 pmOn the evening of 8 February 1855, hoofprints appeared in the snow that blanketed the countryside in Devonshire, but no ordinary hoofprints: they ran over rooftops and across rivers and through walls as if they weren't there, for a hundred miles. When examined, the spacing and placement suggested the creature that made them walked on two legs.
Plenty of logical and mundane theories were offered, like that they were not hoofprints at all but the pattern left by mice hopping across fresh snow, or that they were really badger tracks half-thawed and refrozen. Some less mundane but equally worldly suggestions were offered, such as the possibility of some escaped kangaroos from a private zoo making a midnight run, or that a secret experimental hot air balloon had broken free of its moorings, leaving the hoof-like marks of its shackles as it drifted, only to be subsequently covered up because of the damage it caused.
All were plausible (some more so than others) but none quite fit the bill.
Maybe it's better that way. Don't we all need a little more mystery in our lives?
Plenty of logical and mundane theories were offered, like that they were not hoofprints at all but the pattern left by mice hopping across fresh snow, or that they were really badger tracks half-thawed and refrozen. Some less mundane but equally worldly suggestions were offered, such as the possibility of some escaped kangaroos from a private zoo making a midnight run, or that a secret experimental hot air balloon had broken free of its moorings, leaving the hoof-like marks of its shackles as it drifted, only to be subsequently covered up because of the damage it caused.
All were plausible (some more so than others) but none quite fit the bill.
Maybe it's better that way. Don't we all need a little more mystery in our lives?